How Sacha Baron Cohen Almost Lost His Life Making ‘Borat’

Sacha Baron Cohen once shared a terrifying moment from the set of his 2006 comedy hit Borat during a recent Reddit AMA promoting his film The Brothers Grimsby. The actor revealed that one scene almost cost him his life.

Cohen explained that he usually does scenes only if he finds them “hysterically funny.” But he admitted that he doesn’t always think about the consequences of his ideas. “I have a mental problem, which is, I don’t see the consequences of my actions. So, I will often come up with something in the writers room, with me and my colleague, and not really think through how I’ll feel when I get to the day when I have to shoot it,” he said.

He specifically brought up the infamous scene in Borat where he wrestles his overweight producer in a hotel room. “The naked fight seemed very very funny when I started talking about it in the writers room, but it got to the day, and when I was confronted with a naked 260 lb. man, who had not cleaned his a****** for 25 years, the joke suddenly did not seem very funny,” Cohen said.

Cohen described how dangerous the scene felt. “The worst part filming Borat was the naked fight, because I had a 250 lb. man’s a** on my face, and his buttocks was so big that I couldn’t actually breathe when I was underneath there,” he recalled.

He had only about 30 seconds of air before needing to breathe and had a signal with the director to hit the mattress if he felt like he was going to pass out. “If you look at the Borat film now, you will see that I do hit the mattress three times, and the director didn’t stop filming, which meant I was faced with this very stark choice, which was either to die, or to breathe in the rancid air from my costar’s r*****. And when I was underneath there, I decided to die,” Cohen said. Luckily, his co-star moved, and he managed to finish the scene.

Borat! Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan is a 2006 mockumentary black comedy directed by Larry Charles. Cohen stars as Borat Sagdiyev, a fictional journalist from Kazakhstan who travels through the United States. Much of the film shows unscripted interactions with real people who think Borat is a real foreign visitor.

The film was a co-production between the U.S. and the U.K. and is part of a series of movies based on Cohen’s characters from Da Ali G Show and Ali G Indahouse.

Released on November 2, 2006, by 20th Century Fox, Borat earned $262 million worldwide. Cohen won the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, and the film was nominated for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy.

Borat also received Academy Award and Writers Guild of America nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay. While controversial before its release, and criticized by some participants afterward, the film has been celebrated as one of the best comedies of the 2000s and 21st century.

Critics praised the movie. Ty Burr of The Boston Globe called it “silliness at its most trenchant” and the funniest film of the year. Michael Medved gave it 3.5 out of 4 stars, calling it “simultaneously hilarious and cringe-inducing.” Peter Travers from Rolling Stone wrote, “You won’t know what outrageous fun is until you see Borat. High-five!” The Atlantic described it as “maybe the funniest film in a decade.”

The Guardian named it one of the best films of the 2000s and later ranked it the 23rd greatest film of the 21st century. Even James Cameron is reportedly a fan.

Cohen’s story shows how far he is willing to go for comedy, even risking his own safety to make audiences laugh. It also reminds fans of the intense and often dangerous situations behind some of the most outrageous moments in film.

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